On August 26, the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) celebrated the 40th anniversary of its establishment. In those four decades, Shenzhen has grown from a small fishing village on the southern coast of Guangdong province into a vibrant high-tech metropolis. In 2018 Shenzhen’s GDP surpassed that of neighboring Hong Kong, reaching CNY2.69 trillion. The SEZ is one of the success stories of the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’a reform and opening up policies. Part of the Shenzhen spirit is that everyone can become a “maker” and a “dreamer”, the Global Times reports. The southern China city is the country’s largest migrant city, which has been absorbing talent, capital and new ideas.

One of Shenzhen’s motto’s is “Innovation encouraged and failure tolerated,” encouraging China’s top talents to stay in the coastal city and build it into a world tech powerhouse. People are encouraged to be innovative, to think out of the box and to brainstorm with people of different backgrounds. The cost of failure is also extremely low, and the city takes failure as normal as having breakfast, according to one entrepreneur. There is no city in the world where you can find more components readily available to incorporate into a new product as in Shenzhen. Driven by supportive policies, a growing number of talent, and an innovative ecosystem, Shenzhen contributed nearly half of the 49,000 applications for international patents that the country filed in 2019, which was also ranked as the fourth worldwide. China’s top tech companies Huawei, ZTE, Tencent and DJI all have their headquarters in Shenzhen. In response to the U.S.-China trade war, many tech companies have begun sourcing all necessary parts from Chinese firms and shifting sales to the domestic market. Facing uncertainties overseas, more local high-tech firms have been inspired to develop more innovative products and elevate their core competitiveness, company representatives told the Global Times.

Chan Wai-kuen, now in her 80s, was one of the first Hong Kong businesspeople to invest in the city after its opening-up. On June 28, 1982, her first project in the city – Shekou Shopping Center – opened, officially as “a metal warehouse”. She remembers that “people elbowed in, even some floor tiles broke under the trampling of the crowds. She sold 500 fans and 150 color televisions that day, exhausting all her stock and recouping her investment. The “metal warehouse” developed into a 35-floor tower on the same site in 1995.

The China Daily reports that, as Chan’s story indicates, over the past 40 years, the city itself gained tremendously from its mission of becoming a trailblazer in the development of the country. Last year, the city’s gross domestic product exceeded CNY2.6 trillion, comparable to Singapore. Its per capita GDP is about USD30,000, similar to that of France. Now, more than 100 Fortune Global 500 corporations have operations in Shenzhen, among which eight are headquartered in the city.

The main experience Shenzhen provides the country in its reform and development is that reform should always be market-oriented, said Tao Yitao, Senior Researcher of Special Economic Zones at Shenzhen University. Thanks to its pro-innovation business environment, Shenzhen has successfully transited from its initial labor- and resource-intensive takeoff phase to an innovation-driven development stage, turning the city from an importer of investment and know-how to an exporter.

As a pioneer in the reform and opening-up drive, Shenzhen used to rely on the processing trade. After enjoying a high economic growth rate of nearly 40% annually from the 1980s to the early 1990s, Shenzhen – due to limited land resources and rising labor costs – gradually turned its focus to developing high value-added industries such as IT, biotechnology, new materials and high-end equipment manufacturing. Now it has become a magnet for technology startups and serves as headquarters for famous high-tech companies. “While other regions are also competing to become the frontrunner, you must think outside the box,” said Wang Weizhong, Party Secretary of Shenzhen. “We should not just focus on the 1,997 square kilometers of Shenzhen. We must look at Shenzhen from a broader view.” The local government aims to build Shenzhen into a core engine, in terms of both technology innovation and financial support, driving development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and, by 2035, into a global technology innovation hub, the China Daily reports.

On the occasion of the anniversary, a seventh land border crossing – Liantang – between Shenzhen and Hong Kong was inaugurated. Carrie Lam, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), attended the opening ceremony, saying the facility signals closer ties between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. Due to Covid-19 the border checkpoint is only open for cargo clearance, not for passengers, private cars and buses.